Tony Siragusa: 'Goose: The Outrageous Life & Times of a Football Guy'

Super Bowl champ turned commentator Tony Siragusa tells tales of football and Jersey in his book

‘Goose: The Outrageous Life & Times of a Football Guy’
By Tony Siragusa, with Don Yaeger
(Crown Archetype, 272 pp., $26)

Tony Siragusa puts on no airs. He’s a Jersey guy to his marrow, and my bet is the guy is constitutionally incapable of putting on airs.

For those who don’t know him, Siragusa was a defensive tackle, played 12 seasons in the NFL with the Indianapolis Colts and the Baltimore Ravens, and earned a Super Bowl ring.

A sideline analyst for NFL games on Fox, a host on the DIY channel’s “Man Caves” and a bit player on “The Sopranos,” Siragusa sounds like a fun teammate, a loyal friend, a devoted son, brother, husband and dad.

And now he is an author. Siragusa is better at his other activities than he is at writing.

That’s not to say he is unlikable. I know people love him, and will now hate me for daring to say that even as slim as this book is, it was tough to get through. But if everyone who is a fan of his buys it, it will undoubtedly be a best-seller.

The rest of us, though, want more from a book. Granted, I am not a football fan, but that should not matter. I also wasn’t a World War II spy and recognized what a great writer W.E.B. Griffin is. That’s the allure of reading: It should bring you into new worlds. Great books captivate.

This doesn’t. Don Yaeger, a best-selling, longtime author, receives a “with” credit on the book and I have to wonder if it would not have been better had he more to do. The book lacks structure.

It has the ring of someone advising Siragusa to write as he talks. While that allows people to write more naturally, it should not mean that rules of grammar are forsaken. The book also feels like a collection of stories that have been told many times.

Goose on the sidelines, calling a game

Some are fun. Talking about Little League, he writes: “There was this two-story building just past the right-field fence. It’s still there if you drive through town. When we were kids, that building was mythic. My brother’s friends used to talk about how nobody could ever hit the ball over that building. It was kind of like in that movie ‘The Sandlot’ — how they talked about what it’s like to hit the ball into the junkyard in center field. Anyway, as the ball was coming, the moment was like something from a movie for me. … I swung as hard as I could and bam! I hit the ball.”

At that moment, he knew he could be an athlete. Despite discouraging or disparaging remarks — or rather, because of them — Siragusa pushed himself to become a pro.
His ease in talking about bodily functions makes him popular in some crowds. (I get it, to an extent; I have a teenage son.) But really, do we need a long, excruciatingly detailed story about constipation and enemas?

Through it all, Siragusa is true to his roots, and about his hometown writes:

“I was born in Kenilworth, a two-square-mile borough that seemed like it was 99 percent Italian. My mother used to stand on the back steps and yell, ‘Anthony!’ and twenty kids would come running. We had pasta for every meal.”

Interspersed with his stories are shorter pieces from those close to him. His mom, Rosemarie, write: “The nurses at the emergency room knew him by his first name.”

His teammate and roommate Eddie Toner writes about meeting the general manager of the team, then adds, “I think the second sentence out of his mouth after saying, ‘Congratulations, welcome to the Indianapolis Colts,’ was ‘Stay away from Siragusa.’?”

There’s an honesty to Siragusa, which comes through even when he talks about bullying or cheating. He proudly tells of throwing a roommate’s TV out of a dorm window and threatening the guy that he would be next. Siragusa’s friend needed a place to stay, so the roommate, a student at the college, had to go because Siragusa decided so.

“When I talk about the art of cheating …,” he writes, introducing a section about the NFL rule against using Vaseline or silicone spray on the jersey. Siragusa offers his twist on it:

“If I was playing some guy who was particularly dirty, a cheap-shot artist, what I would do is put a bunch of Vaseline or silicone on my hands. Then I’d put the stuff all over his jersey and go to the ref and say, ‘Hey, he has some … on his jersey, you better check that out.’?”

It’s undeniable that Siragusa loves football, and as much as a game can, it loves him right back. He’s made the most of it and understands the art of the hustle. But paying $26 for this is another one.